never your son
by CyanideBubbles
Summary: Mordred's inner monologue as he dies, moments of revelation and a wish that... things could have been different. But it always had to be that way, didn't it? It was ka. Dark Tower Series, set at the end of the Seventh Book-ish. SOME SPOILERS!


_DISCLAIM-IT: I really do love the Dark Tower Series. I think...yeah, I don't want to call it a modern classic because that's almost an oxymoron, but I swear that they were some of the most enjoyable books that I have read in a very, very long time. Definitely my favourites. Hence it is that with a lot of displeasure, I announce that I don't own Stephen King, his soul or the Dark Tower series and it's characters. Isn't that heartbreaking?_

_WARNING: Book #7 SPOILERS! Well, kind of._

_Another thing, I'd like to say that we all love to hate Mordred for what he did at the end of the series cos I was SO sad that -that- certain character that he killed died. At least he went out fighting, eh? That said, I really do think that before he went batsh!! crazy well, more batpoop crazy our Mord was really quite the tragic villain - monstrous and destined to be a villain but not really able to control his own future or make his own choices, just a pawn. _

_Hell, I just like tragic villains, mkay? They're my drug_

* * *

I'm sorry father. You know, as my conscious fades, ebbing back and away from the rising gloom, I never really meant to hurt you.

It's cold, so cold. I've always been cold, you know? Always been frozen, always lived in as if in ice, curled in a sad little buddle as if the air turned suddenly artic. When you had everything, I had nothing. When you had friends and fire, warmth and people around you and wanted for, if anything, very little and had a purpose and a place you had to go to, and that's what I tell myself made me hate you, that and the biting rage of the madness which dogged my steps this fateful night. You had everything and I had nothing; I have never had anything, I have always been cold and hungry and perhaps you did me an unwitting blessing in killing me this hour. But you were happy and I wasn't, you see? I envied you, longed to be with you and yet was repulsed by your repulsion. It is the blight of the unwanted, unloved child. The only person who ever loved me was me, not you, not my dubious mother, not the my red father or the night sky above, not ka, which looked upon you so favourably for so long, which chose you as its hero and me as some meagre minor villain; nobody but I. I served a purpose but was not loved, had no human affection because I was a monster, because I was feared. And, father dearest, you think you mourn greater than I. Stupid thought, old man, for you are misled in believing that the old proverb that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all is a lie. Your love has betrayed you and brought you sorrow, but before that it brought you happiness that was never mine. _Happiness was never mine. _Nor joy, nor friendship, nor comfort. Oh ka, why, even now, am I always alone? All I wanted was to be wanted and… look at me through the shades of time, the memory a son spurned, abject, grotesque. Freezing in the dark and calling it survival.

We're too the same, you and I. Oh, don't look at my ravaged form with such disgust. Death has returned the clarity that madness robbed from me, but when I look at you I still see that same madness which I wish, wish so hard like a child wishing upon a star, was just a lucid imagining from my fevered mind. When you look at me, I see myself reflected in your eyes; a monster, an abomination. Maybe I am, but it was neither you nor I that did this to me - it was neither you nor I that chose for this to be. We're one and a same, Roland Deschain, and even if you cannot see it, I see it, and we have the same eyes. If it had been different, I might have been glad to have those gunslinger blues, but it was never different, is never different, can never be different. We're one and the same, you're just too blind to admit it. We're both fatherless, now, I not disowned but never owned and you having lost everything I never had. We've both done what's necessary, both played our parts, and we'll play them again and hope that they're different the next time around. We've both had to fight, both had to survive, only you always had something I never had.

What! Look away from me, will you? Look at the pathetic corpse of that mangy creature hanging on that tree. Oh, he died so valiantly, father, don't hesitate to shed a tear for _him. _And this is what I am reduced to, only not reduced, because I was never more than that in your eyes or my red father's or even my own eyes - competing with some animal, like some animal, for that which I will never have - your love, respect. I should have known that it was too much to ask, that the loathing in your steady, infamous gaze would waver even less frequently than those blue lamplights themselves. They belittle even my tortured corpse, scream 'animal', 'curse', even now and bid my suddenly too clear soul to silence and die out forever. I guess you don't understand; no, you don't hear me, do you? There's no hit of revelation in your face, I guess this lingers on as an inner monologue. Perhaps, without words, it will touch you psychically and you will feel regret for the son that might have been. Still, if we were to speak as living equals, the words and understanding would never flow and you would probably send my to by unforgiving grave again.

Yes! That's what I want! Some regret, some regret boiling bloody in your features! Shed tears, father, for what you have done. Infanticide, you killed your own child. Cry! Cry! I want tears which will never pour down your cheeks, old man, to be there nevertheless. I want someone to miss me, so I can die knowing that my existence wasn't as wretched and unholy as every breath I took and every stranger I saw told me. Cry, old man, cry like you'll cry for that stupid plump american boy and his moronic brethren, cry like you'll cry in regret and loss for your old love and that stupid animal, only cry for me. _Me. The only son you'll ever have. _Your short-lived legacy.

No, I don't hate you father. No, I never meant this to be, father. No, I never meant to hurt you. Father? You can't even look at me. You hate me even in death.

Well, maybe you did me a favour. It'll be nice to sleep for once, really sleep, and not be cold.


End file.
